Things I have had to forfeit and things I am unable to find

Patience, like moss, that grows on red soil. Conversations with friends, like inadequate breakfast. Lengths of borders, names of capitals. Birds, on asphalt, outlined by pink ribbons. Languages in which I am still waiting for you to show me the shapes of your bruised toes (let me water them). Ankle-deep pools where I was taught yelling could mean joy. Lights dimly flooding our faces. Falling while falling. Sleeping on the couch. Sleeping on the floor. In the car, sleeping, like a memory. My mother clutched onto me. Imagining cities. Uncertain fingers finding bruises against the light. Kerosene lamps, my mother called them hariken batis, and the way they tended to make an island for a family. We were an island with compositions of bickering and yelling. Occasional bruises. Drawn out silences. The absurdity of growth. Of it all, really. The absurdity of memory, of clinging on to Sunday evenings, and to the sting of saltwater, first in your ear canals, then in your lungs. Sinking. I dreamt I was a flower deep in the ocean. The soil and the mycelium in their everlasting drape. Inside of me, my bones decalcify. I will become a reef, falling steady in the water. A joy, a lack of silence. We are all yelling together when the dream ends. I am back to where my ankles kiss the soil. A chameleon looks at me and I look back. Both living, allowed to not forfeit, by the actions of holding on. Like that can be beautiful. Stay in touch. Tell me the next thing I will lose will be the last. And from my mouth will grow water lilies. If I am a garden, I will stand next to where my mother's shadow falls. Made human by reaching out. Resting underneath. The sun in our pockets. The light whittling down. Childhood homes at dusk. Occasional bruises. Drawn out silences. And then the rest of the poem.

Raian Abedin is a poet, a student of Biochemistry, and a contributor to The Daily Star.